Get Everything Done

Baumeister, Tierney - Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

Excellent book - many of its ideas are already naturally incorporated in many Mark`s (and others`) TM systems, but you can find many other tips for self-control and doing the most important (thus resisting the less important), both from theoretical and practical standpoints.

This book is both scientifically based and highly readable. No boring and repetitive chapters, no mystical theories.

I recommend it to everybody, it is one of the best books I have read this year.

Not everyone agrees with Baumeister's idea of willpower as a muscle. Ryan and Deci (http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/) believe that self-control can deplete willpower when the activity is a constraint. If the activity derives from a deep interest then willpower will not be depleted; it might even be enhanced.

It's the key issue the productivity authors keep bumping into: a tool or a system will make you more efficient if you already want to do something, but if you don't, the risk is to just move the resistance at the tool level, as a proxy - hence the never ending quest for the "next" tool or refinement, or theory ..

I'd say the greatest human strength is imagination.

@Visitor: from what I understood from Baumeister, he does not say that deeply interesting activities deplete willpower at the same rate as uninteresting - just for the fact that when you do something deeply interesting, you do not have to compete with resistance, other impulses etc., thus you do not have to deplete your willpower.

So, the idea of muscle is consistent with notion that you do not deplete so much willpower when doing something interesting. You do not use this muscle - less distractions/impulses to fight conserve this energy.

On the other side, from what I observed in the book, Baumeister does not use metaphor of muscle much, if anywhere at all.